Cap Tex 2009 - Race Report (short version)

Training up to Monday has been dull. Motivation has gone to a new low, and my ego is playing wierd little games. I finally have the confidence that I'm going to be ok for IMCDA, but with this confidence has come laziness. It's not that I'm tired, although I am, but it's more that I've lost the drive to make it to all the workouts. I was hoping that Cap Tex would rejuvenate me :)

Saturday: 42 miles of S. Mopac loops followed by 13 miles of hot, long, slow miles.

Sunday: Cap Tex prep, packet pickup, bike check in, errand running.

Monday:

Swim: 26:47, swim pace of 1:47/m

Rank: 320/1327

Woke up at 4:30am, made it to the race with plenty of time. Arranged transition area. Ate Power Bar. Made it to the swim start. Kissed Adrian and got him on his way. My wave was 35 minutes later, so thankfully I had enough time to let Adrian know he was the 3rd out of the water from his wave. Swim went fine for me. I had to calm myself in the beginning because I was just excited and probably swimming too fast. I placed myself up front, because I'd rather get run over than have to swim harder to get around people. I stayed to the far right of the buoy and it worked out perfectly. For some reason, everyone swam too far out, except for one red cap. I felt like I was swimming with this red cap forever, constantly bumping into her, seeing her every 6th stroke, and it was irritating because she kept swimming into me. Finally after the half way point, I kicked it up and got in front of her. My sighting was perfect, I've gotten sooo much better with this. Only mistake that I made was I didn't see the last buoy so I started swimming to shore too early and had to turn late to round the last buoy. Other than that, I had a great swim.

T1: 3:21

Greeted and heard several T3'ers yell for me, which was awesome. I didn't have any trouble getting out of Adrian's wetsuit. We switched for this event. Running with my bike seemed like forever. I wish I knew how to run while holding my bike with just the seat, and I wish I could run faster in cycling shoes.

Bike: 1:18:42, 18.9 mph

Rank: 699/1327

I only had a goal of having a faster mph than my previous PR, which was 16.5. I had planned to get out of my saddle more, and push harder gears on the downhills. The loops went fast, and nothing too interesting other than I found myself for the first time, looking and watching for people in my age group. I noticed who was passing me, which for me I've never done, cause EVERYONE used to pass me. Not today. Mostly men and women that were younger or in my the age group above me were passing. There were 2 girls that started behind me that passed me in my age group. The last one, fought to not let go. For the 2nd & 3rd lap we'd play cat and mouse, I'd pass, then a few minutes later, she'd pass, and this went on. The last lap, she finally passed long enough that I forgot about her and lost track. I remember telling myself to remember her number so I could look at the results later to see just how bad she beat me. 421. I later found out she gained 25 seconds on the bike.

T2: 2:10

I felt pretty fluid for this stop, and decided not to do socks. I just slipped on my running shoes, grabbed my hat and race belt and was off. Saw Chris G in transition and got a shout out.

Run: 54:02, 8:42/m

Rank: 452/1342

Run felt good, 1st mile was a 9:16. I was stoked about that. It didn't feel hard, and I would for sure break 3 hours if I kept that pace. I was a little worried that I had forgotten my salt tablets in my transistion bag, so I didn't have any electrolytes other than what was in my Gu's and nutrition bottle. 2nd mile was an 8:23, holy moly. 3rd mile was freakishly slow, but it didn't feel like it, 10:19ish. After I got back on Riverside a guy passed me, but he didn't blow by me. I latched onto him and was able to run with him. I stayed with him to Congress. On my way, I asked him, "Do you have any idea what pace you're running?" He said, "No." so I dropped it and just tried to run with him as long as I could. The effort felt increased, but not something I couldn't do, until... he said, "Oh, I did just run the first loop in 22 minutes, so I bet we're doing 7:45's." and I immediately thought, "OH, hell no, I can't run that fast!" I wish he wouldn't have said anything and I probably could have stayed on his heel. I have some mental work to do, cause about 20 seconds later, I let him drop me. Finished the run strong though, the rest of the miles were under 8:30's and finished it out with a nice good stride.

Oh, and I passed 421 within the first two miles of the run :)

Extremely happy with my entire race, stoked about my new course PR.

Final Stats

2:45:06

19th in my age group out of 105 - (insane!)

445 out of 1327 total participants